


Can I come over, I need to rest

by malna



Category: K (Anime)
Genre: F/M, I want to put ointment all over this anime., M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-08-29 10:15:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8485462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malna/pseuds/malna
Summary: A series of one-shots, small glimpses into the lives of our beloved K characters and how they interlock.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my wonderful beta, [RodeoTown](http://archiveofourown.org/users/RodeoTown/pseuds/RodeoTown).

Awashima taxes all the monitors straggled on Fushimi's desk with her steel gaze. As usual, they display variously angled shots of one Yataragasu Misaki of Homra doing flips on his skateboard as he roams the city streets. 

It irks her still, such blatant disregard for a work code, however she allows it, seeing as Fushimi contributes more to Scepter4 than any other ten men under her command combined, and while Awashima has been called many things, petty-minded is not one of them.

A glint of LED light refracts in Fushimi's glasses as he cocks his head up to catch her gaze. There is nothing timid in his stance when he does that; there never is.

“You have something to say, say it.”

“Just that--”

A girl walks by the Red King's clansman on the screens and he promptly lands head-first in a municipal waste container. 

“I never pegged you for a slapstick comedy fan,” is all Awashima says, no humor or infliction in her clear voice. She walks off, casual as you please, and Fushimi thinks there never will be a time when he would see this woman as anything other than what she truly is: the Blue King's sword.


	2. Chapter 2

It's the second time this week he catches sight of Kusanagi flaunting about the Scepter4 headquarters and, much as he'd like to claim perfect indifference, it does set his teeth on edge. As per usual, Kusanagi is here to talk Awashima into hanging out with him at Bar Homra under the pretense of discussing demarcation of territory surveillance between the clans.

As Fushimi walks past them with a tablet in his hand, he takes advantage of his admin privileges as well as wireless connection to all the devices within the compounds and in no time deafening music carries from the loudspeakers for everyone to hear.

Girl!  
I wanna take you to a gay bar,  
I wanna take you to a gay bar,  
I wanna take you to a gay bar, gay bar, gay bar. 

He pauses the track. Everyone in sight stares at their lieutenant, a very self-conscious Red King's clansman, and Saruhiko himself. Clicking his tongue, Fushimi mutters under his nose. 

“Ah. A glitch.”

“Saruhiko,” Kusanagi drawls through clenched teeth. He looks like he has more to say but can't quite decide where to start. 

And then it is Fushimi who turns dumbfounded because suddenly a small snort escapes Awashima. He blinks and it's gone, her face as stern as ever.

“Have the grace to stand tall when you've been acutely exposed, Izumo-san,” she admonishes. “Or do you learn nothing from our stunts? Maybe you didn't pay attention after all, and when I could swear that you were keen on looking.”

Fushimi curiously watches between the two of them. 

Kusanagi swallows, hard.

“I was looking.”

“Very well. Now take me to your gay bar.”

A smirk tugs on Fushimi's lips.

“Try not to put much strain on a settle by the windows. It's been through enough hardship as it is and it's not the most stable.”

Kusanagi halts in his tracks. A soft smile curves up his lips.

“The right support leg keeps slanting inward. I was wondering about that.”

Fushimi hums noncommittally. 

Not looking back, Izumo flips him off and they're on their way out.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First impressions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many people worked to salvage this chapter. I like how it turned out.  
> A huge shout-out to troubadour who performed plastic surgeries on almost every sentence. Your magic wins all 'before & after' contests.  
> Thank you, Theoria, for your invaluable help, for not giving up when I was about to.  
> For all your apt corrections, but more than that, for being a wonderful reason for me to keep writing - thank you, judith. <3
> 
> Something for headphones: [Clan Of Xymox - No Words](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SssYT5FW8Hk).

Suoh Mikoto arrives to bust them out of a cell in Scepter 4’s dungeon after midnight, eight hours into their incarceration. Hero to the rescue. However, Fushimi is under no delusion that his late arrival is warranted. The truth is, no-one bothered to wake the king from his almost perpetual slumber on their behalf.

There's a blast of explosions, roaring fire amongst swirls of debris. Just as Fushimi managed to doze off. While the uniforms and fledgling prison breakers flee in blind havoc, Mikoto strolls, as if he were sleepwalking. Nothing slows him down. Not until the Blue King steps in his path.

It is his first week since ascension.

Fushimi and Yata cling to the bars in their cell as they watch with awe and apprehension in equal measure.

 

The Blue King was nothing like what they expected. Nothing like Mikoto, for sure. He was even... civil, Fushimi had come to decide. Sleazy and nauseating were the words of Misaki's choice. 

One thing they agreed on: the Blue King's preference in assistants is shit. His lieutenant took it upon herself to interrogate them – it roused flashbacks to junior high for Fushimi, his worst sadist of a teacher revived.

Having met Awashima, Fushimi could cut Kusanagi some slack. It would go to Kusanagi’s head, but once they got back, Fushimi planned on telling him all about the sick joke that the Blue King's second-in-command was.

 

Confronted with the incredible presence of Reisi Munakata, Mikoto blinks, then squints as if trying to see through him.

“My dreams are getting whacky.” 

Munakata seems taken aback. Before he can speak, Misaki chimes in. “No, Mikoto-san! Be careful!” He shouts, pulling and yanking at the bars. “You're awake, and that hodad is totally real. He's their new king.”

“Munakata Reisi,” the man in question obliges – the unspoken  _‘at your service’_ almost audible. Mikoto can't have missed it either, or else his chest wouldn't contract with a small, silent laugh. When he smiles, it is easy and fond.

He examines Reisi again, without meaning to will him away by the power of sheer concentration this time. Takes in his ivory skin and the slash of pitch-black hair, lips for smiles kind and forbearing, so at odds with the sharp gazes he darts that may or may not be to blame for his jagged bangs.

Ripples of calm sea under the night sky come to mind. Moons, cuts, and razor blades. “What a bother,” Mikoto grunts.

Pouncing on a non-violent moment due to the Red King's spacing out, Munakata cites paragraphs and protocols at him, throwing in something about pure causes for good measure. Mikoto cringes, shielding his eyes with his hand, as if hungover and subjected to an onslaught of light. “Ugh... What's with all the  _words_?” 

He lowers his hand and, without looking, reaches toward where Misaki and Saruhiko are crouching in their cell. “Gimme your headphones.” Yata throws them to him, Mikoto snatching with ease. Before putting them on, he asks once more, “You sure this isn’t all in my head?”

“Yeah. What's up with that?”

“The Nutcracker.” Mikoto grunts, waving in the Blue King's direction. “I read the Nutcracker when I was a kid.” Yata bursts into a fit of laughter. “Mikoto-san, that's gold!” Fushimi casts his cellmate a look that carries threats of vomit. Misaki doesn't notice.

“You made me swallow my gum, and I so want to stick it under a doorknob to his majesty's office before we leave.” Going by the smirk that tugs on his lips, it is a concept to Mikoto's liking. Misaki catches this, and his slaying only doubles. Fushimi feels an impulse to smash his cellmate's head into the wall. Misaki doesn't see.

Meanwhile, Munakata barks orders to his clansmen. For Mikoto, it is lost, muffled under the headphones. “Keeps flapping his jaw like one, too.”

Misaki is floored, lost in a fit of giggles. Fushimi thinks it painful to watch. Never before has he seen Misaki like _this_ – outside of fights, maybe – so beyond himself with simple joy. “Mikoto-san, you're the  _best!_ ”

His shout, when it comes bursting out, startles Fushimi himself more than anybody. “ _Let me out!_ ” 

It stops Mikoto dead in his tracks, giving the Blue King the upper hand when he strikes. It only takes a moment for Misaki to make sense of Fushimi's sudden outburst. When it clicks, he returns to yanking at the bars. 

“Right! Mikoto-san! We can help—” Saruhiko bangs his head against the wall. He starts laughing manically, tasting tears on his tongue. He starts laughing like this, and then he doesn't stop. 

 

It is a soft hum of hardware and ventilation, a dark office, shades pulled as courtesy by one of his colleagues or the Blue King himself, with just a faint light trickling from monitors – present footage of Misaki laughing – that Fushimi wakes up to.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter inspired by tastewithouttalent's [Permanency](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1872639) which is fab and you should go read it now.

“ _Misaki..._ ”

“Stop calling me.”

 

“Go die.”

 

“Die _faster._ ”

 

“How would you do it?”

“ _What?_ ”

“Kill me. How would you-”

“No! Nononononononononononono.”

 

“No. There is no way in hell you'll ever trick me into spilling threats while you fap to it. Not happening. Ever. Again!”

 

“Misa-”

“Why?! Why me? I'm just a guy. And why _you_? Why this brand of batshit? Why not some human brains eating fetishist? It would be almost preferable.”

“Oh, _he_ is after me.”

“ _What?!_

...The fuck are you laughing at, monkey!”

 

“Aren't you supposed to have a job?”

 

“I need sleep, Saru.”

 

“I can't. You win, I loose. Just stop.”

 

“ _Mercy-_ ”

“Have you come to realize yet?”

“Realize _what?_ ”

“You need someone in your life with the brain capacity to block a number on your phone.”

“...”

“Mi-sa-ki.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pompei

Several days after the events of the 'Academy Island Incident', as media took to calling it, Kusanagi fishes an old postcard out of his drawer and pins it the reverse side up to a board on the wall in his bar, among numerous pictures taken by Totsuka.

It was written by Fushimi, with an added postscript in Yata's loopy handwriting. They sent it to Izumo while in Europe, on their brief trip in chase of some rogue Strains. 

_Yo, Izumo._

_Looks like a bunch of fools saw a volcano and said: "Why, isn't it splendid! What better place for us to build our little world around?"  
What were they thinking, I wonder?_

_See you,  
Fushimi  & ~~Misaki~~ Yata_

_P.S. Say hi to everyone for us! Tell Mikoto-san he's a moron for oversleeping our flight._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'san' is also on'yomi reading for 'mountain'
> 
> Happy New Year to all!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aftershocks

Several days after the events of the 'Academy Island incident', as media took to calling it, Awashima fires one of her pencil pushers at the bureau who has underperformed, going by her standards. As a retort, Fushimi brings up that none of the Scepter 4's employees meet prohibitive criteria she imposes and yet carrying on without them would raise difficulties. Awashima is not swayed by this argument.

“If he can't make the best of the opportunity we give him, then he doesn't really appreciate it. There is no place for people like this in Scepter 4.”

Fushimi tempers with files and sends the guy on a leave of three weeks instead. By the time he gets back, Awashima might be amenable.

Saruhiko doesn't even _like_ people. It's not about that.

This is damage control.

 

Well into the night hours, Fushimi walks down the wide, dim-lit corridor leading to the Blue King's apartment.

It is Awashima who opens the door for him. She looks weary, her eyes are a little red, still her hair and outfit remain impeccable. She greets Fushimi with a curt _You're later than I expected,_ and moves out of the doorway to let him enter.  
If she notices the possible implications of her staying at the king's unit at this time of night, she doesn't seem to care one bit.

“Where is he?” 

“I wouldn't know,” she says. “I don't spy on him.” 

Fushimi winces but lets the wide jab go without a word of retort. She is tired. 

Awashima instructs him to pull down all net curtains in the apartment and hang up a change of fresh new ones she has at the ready. Fushimi obeys after some perfunctory railing. Somewhere along the line Awashima says _He would just go out every night,_ and without further comment she returns to filling a dishwasher with piling mugs and bawls.

“I take it you've found out about incidents involving a group of whippersnappers keen on computer games,” she says once she's returned from the kitchen.

“JUNGLE,” Fushimi supplies. “You didn't send anybody after them, didn't report to Munakata. On the contrary, you took some measures to cover it up - that's what caught my attention. You shouldn't have. If it weren't for that, I wouldn't have bothered.”

“I know.” 

That catches him off guard. He squints at her, biding time before he speaks again.

“Ah. So you lured me in here on purpose.” One of the only places in the city the monitoring system doesn't reach. “Alright. You have my attention.”

“You went over my head,” Awashima chooses to say instead. “Has it ever crossed your mind to confront me directly about this?”

Not really. Whatever trouble she got herself into, apparently it was nothing she wanted disclosed. And it's not like Fushimi could make her talk. The Blue King, on the other hand, was sure to pry it out of her, and as it so happened, the man himself could use distraction these days. Two birds, one stone.

“It's smart that you didn't,” she picks up when he doesn't reply. “Do you think me a traitor, Fushimi-kun?”

Saruhiko doesn't physically flinch but it's a close thing. Because even in death, Suoh Mikoto still manages to tear his world asunder. This new one he's built from scratch, just like the one before it.

“Talk to me or don't,” he hisses through clenched teeth. “I don't particularly care one way or another. But stop lashing out at random like a blind, wounded boar. Misaki rocks this look but it's ugly on you.”

He doesn't get back to her earlier question, doesn't explain why he went over her head. The last thing she deserves from him right now is to know that he'd been concerned for her.

With a sigh, Awashima sinks into an armchair in one graceful movement.

“It must be the closest to a complement I'll ever get from you.” She slants him a glance. “I believe I owe you an apology.”

“Save it.”

She bites her lip. 

“Captain didn't leave the island unharmed,” she says after a momentary pause. “He needs his head back in the game. And I think... JUNGLE may provide a challenge. Not as it is now, not yet. But in awhile. I merely chose to give them time. However, I can only hide this from the SCEPTER 4 for so long. I'm not good enough at pitting data.”

For the second time in a very short while, Awashima manages to throw Fushimi completely for a loop.

“This could backfire,” he says after some deliberation.

“I'm aware.”

Fushimi raises an eyebrow. “Lives are at stake?” 

“Yes. One of them very dear to me. You have seen his Damocles.”

“You're serious about this.”

She nods. Well then. Fushimi ponders everything for a while.

“It's not enough to erase data,” he decides. “It will surface one way or another. Fragmentation of a hard drive in places where there shouldn't be any was what clued me in in the first place. Besides, you never know what footage may turn out useful some day. No, what you need to do is keep the records running, just sort the incidents into database files in a way that will make them seem unrelated. That entails screwing with libraries, so-- _CodeIgniter_.” He smiles in this way of his that makes most people search for exit doors in the room.

Just as he's got ready to leave, Awashima stops him upon noticing.

“What is it now?” Fushimi asks. “That was what you pulled me in here for, wasn't it?” 

“Mostly, yes. But I could also use your help looking through Suoh Mikoto's stuff. It clutters all over the place. As his former clansman you should be able to recognize a good chunk of it.” 

Fushimi bristles. “Yeah, I don't think so.”

“You can start with that rack. I've already gone through the kitchen cupboards.”

Awashima fixes him with a glare and Fushimi thinks he's learning what having an older sister must be like, one who comes from hell and can beat you into a bloody pulp without breaking a sweat. In the end he resigns himself to a night of picking up after his least favorite corps.

“We can leave things that may hold sentimental value but I draw a line at Captain striking this guy's briefs next time he moves the sofa to clean,” she says, whereat Fushimi quirks an eyebrow. Awashima gives a small shake of her head. “Not clad. No home. No cash.”

“Sounds about how I remember it.” A smile tugs at Saruhiko's lips. “Still, I can't imagine why you'd think I'd recognize Suoh's underwear. Or Reisi's, for that matter.”

Awashima blinks. “Right.” She clears her throat. “It's my educated guess that Captain's can be found neatly folded in a drawer. Chop chop! Sweaters, favorite tea, shampoo or anti-flea spray, as it may be the case - bring everything here. We'll send it to a shelter.”

Two pairs of worn jeans went. Several jumpers. Snowboarding gear, of all things. A pile of abused toothpicks. By the time Fushimi came across bottles of lemon chuhai in the fridge, something was tugging at his chest – not unlike when that misplaced crumb of red ripped its way out of his body. Suoh Mikoto had never once withdrawn power from Fushimi, not for as long as he'd been breathing. Saruhiko, for his part, had never let go of it. 

“You should have brought Izumo with for this crap.” The words come out of him ragged. Clicking his tongue, Saruhiko fishes a knife out of an insert underside a sleeve of his shirt and opens a bottle of chuhai to pull a swig. “He'd know better than I what to look for.”

“I could have.”

 

His king died. On a whim, Saruhiko lets the notion wash over him, suspending all its absurdity for a brief moment. Testing the feel of it, trying to gauge whether or not it holds any meaning. Not like it does for others in HOMRA, that much he knows. But maybe it means something after all.

These stay: an empty ashtray. 

A slick, jet-black blouse Saruhiko saw twice before. First time when a fierce clash broke out between the clans. Suoh Mikoto was wearing it, the dark fabric streaming sharply like an ink picture tearing loose from its background with his each deadly efficient movement. Munakata would look at him with this glint in his eyes, like the fact that the Red King forced him to throw everything he had at him made Reisi feel alive. Like he'd just climbed the top of the world.  
Second time Fushimi saw the blouse was one slow morning that found Munakata hanging about HOMRA's turf, looking less like a king and more a cat that just ate a canary. 

People who knew the Blue King superficially, which was almost everybody, would expect him to go to great lengths in attempt to keep an affair with another king a secret, more so a king of an antagonistic clan. In a sense, it might seem true for the simple fact that Munakata was a very private person, tight lipped. But while he was careful not to put his life on display, he certainly didn't hide. And with the way he felt, he turned his each and every walk of shame into a pride parade. Fushimi thought he would have still, even if he hadn't understood his power better than most kings. Better than most, full stop. Even if he hadn't been so young and in love.

People who didn't really know the Red King would think him incapable of commitment. For a long time, Fushimi used to believe that himself. And then one day Saruhiko turned coat, and Mikoto just kept his powers flowing, always and without fault at his fingertips. Sure as day when he used them against the Red King's clansmen, time and again.

Suoh Mikoto shattered and redefined the word commitment in Fushimi's book.

 

“You've been staring at these socks for ten minutes now.”

Fushimi huffs in frustration while Awashima moves to take place beside him on the sofa, putting a saucer of heart-shaped gingersnaps she dug out from the kitchen on the adjacent tea-table.

“If Captain can conduct negotiations with Home Secretary, he sure as hell can do this shit.”

“He shouldn't have to. And, Saruhiko-” She pauses, mulling over her next words. “I'm doing it for myself, first and foremost. That day, on the island-- my world was returned to me. And I've never felt more relieved. But _his_ world was gone. It seems unequal, and I suppose it is. We are. But it is unfair to him alone.”

She munches on the last bit of her frosted cookie.

“These days, I try to come here when he's out. Because every time I do something for him now, all the usual things I take care of-- I can see how he can't help but hate me a little for it. Because I get to do this for him. I was granted that privilege. And he was denied.” Avoiding sticky fingertips, she brushes away a single tear streaming down her cheek with a knuckle. “So. I'll be damned before I miss any opportunity to support him to my fullest. I won't, not while we breathe. Captain... he did so much for Suoh Mikoto, you don't know the half of it--”

“Much good it did.”

“No, you don't get it!” Her voice breaks. “There is nothing he can do now. It's done. He will never be able to--” She sniffs and, in a burst of sharp movements, she rifles through her handbag in search of a bag of tissues. “To save him but he will never be able to make him coffee either. Or strike him dumb with one of these stupidly thoughtful gifts he can come up with, or fuck his brains out. Get him to smile. Oh my God, Saruhiko, _why would he do anything anymore?_ I don't see-- Fuck. Why do anything?”

Fushimi puts a tentative hand on her back, then with a sigh he hooks an arm over her trembling shoulders, leaning in till his face is tickled with strands of hair slipping loose from her updo. She has a sweet, delicate scent when he breathes in. There's that gingerbread, too. 

Fushimi lets the silence stretch on before he speaks again.

“The night after Misaki almost got himself killed in one of HOMRA's braindead assaults, there was an excruciating heatwave and I couldn't sleep with how hot it was. Way back when, we used to share a flat with Misaki. Our room had been around nine square meters so we had to make do with a bunk bed and I would take the top. I used to sleep well back then. So uh, that night I grabbed my mattress and a pillow. I climbed the roof over his apartment and lied down directly above him, playing pretend. I still do that, sometimes, when I need-- grounding.”

Awashima blows her nose, loud and inelegant.

“That's because you're a creep and a psycho,” she sobs out. “I don't know why you would tell me this.”

Fushimi sighs and moves to pry an impressive bundle of used tissues out of her hand, throwing them into a bin liner along with the toothpicks.

“Don't push so hard,” he says. “With everything you do, you shove it in his face how badly you need him fixed. We all do, he already knows that. However--” He squeezes his eyes shut against a momentary flare of pins and needles running through his burnmark. “It's his break to keep. If that's what he chooses.”

He shrugs when Awashima fixes him with an inscrutable stare.

“'S what he made allowances for when he took me in,” he tells her. “Fair is fair.”

“You know, Fushimi-kun. You never would have landed this position in Scepter4 if it had been up to me. No, I wouldn't have let you into the force in the first place.”

“I know.”

“I guess that's why Captain is the king, and not me.”

Fushimi cracks a smirk. He raises to his feet and walks up to a drawer where he fetches fresh linen. 

“Well, that,” he says. “And he's also better at strategizing. Not nearly as arrogant as you, apt at reading people--”

“What are you doing?” Awashima cuts him off when she sees him changing sheets on the Blue King's bed.

“You're staying the night,” Fushimi proclaims.

“Like hell I am.” 

“You look dead on your feet and if you so much as reach for your car keys I will arrest you.”

“You and what army?”

“All Scepter 4 if need be.”

Awashima frowns. “I know you do understand how ranks work, Fushimi-kun.”

“Try us.”

Fushimi carries on making the bed while Awashima only watches, looking lost for words. Saruhiko thinks it has little to do with her exhaustion and a lot to do with the fact that it's been way too long since anybody gave a finger to her orders.

“Captain could come back,” she tries but there's no real fight left in her words.

“So he comes back, I don't give a shit. He can sleep on the floor.” Fushimi fluffs a pillow and runs a hand over silken linen. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees her drinking in the sight. “These are soft. If you don't take this bed, I will.”

Awashima grits her teeth.

“Get out, Fushimi.” 

She pulls her hair down and fetches a towel from a drawer. _Fucking finally._ Saruhiko puts on his shoes and readies to leave. “Love you too, Lieutenant.”

“Gross.” Her nose wrinkles up a little. “Try creeping up my rooftop and I _will_ push you out of it.”


End file.
